Archive for March, 2007
Reflection on the conference, François Matarasso
“Conferences are a professional necessity and not always an enjoyable one: the combination of too much small talk and too much big talk can produce a degree of mental indigestion”. Find out what Matarasso thought about ‘Whose Play is it Anyway?’
Spotlight 4: Theatre and Development
In this session, artists from Europe, Africa and Latin America presented their experiences and visions. The discussion was led by Professor Tim Prentki of the University of Winchester (UK).
‘Community Arts: A missing link, an enriching dimension’
In this article, Dragan Klaic sketches some characteristics of the professional arts education in Holland and demonstrates its resistance to the contextual understanding of art practice. He also maps out the field of community art, seeking some points of connection and engagement. Discussions prompted by this paper, he hopes, will lead in due time to some curriculum innovations and development in Dutch arts colleges.
Spotlight 5: Theatre and Refugees
In this debate a number of European artists discuss their work with and for refugees. Speakers come from Italy, the Czech Republic, France and Holland.
‘Where is There’ by Saleh Hassan
Performed by Saleh Hassan Faris
Text by Saleh Hassan Faris in collaboration with Chaalan Charif
(translated by Eugène van Erven)Ladies and gentlemen,
Let me be frank with you:
This performance will be useless to you.
Useless to anyone.
Except to me.
To me, and those who resemble me
Those who, like me, feel the heaviness of time,
And don’t know how to kill it.
We […]Erica Kubic
Erica Kubic is project manager of ‘Artists Elsewhere’ with Kunstenaars&CO.
Titia Bouwmeester
Titia Bouwmeester calls herself a theatre director, visual artist, project developer and generator of ideas.
Jos Thie
Since 2003 Jos Thie is a theatre director specializing in large outdoor community spectacles.
Saskia van de Ree
Saskia van de Ree producer of the Yo! Opera Festival and Laboratory, studied dramaturgy in Utrecht and has worked as a producer in various executive functions in the performing arts.
Ton van Vlijmen
Ton van Vlijmen is former head of the Theatre and Education programma of the Utrecht School for the Arts and has been professionally involved in Dutch youth theatre for many years.
Marlies Hautvast
Marlies is a co-founder of Stut theatre.
Paul Mineur
Paul Mineur teaches perspectives on culture at the Maastricht theatre academy
Bruin Otten
Bruin Otten has been artistic director of the drama teachers’ training programme of the Amsterdam theatre academy since 1993.
Peter van den Hurk
In 2001, 2003 and 2005 Paul van den Hurk organized the Rotterdam Wijktheater International Community Theatre Festivals.
Thera Jonker
Thera Jonker is head of the School of Theatre & Education of the Utrecht School of the Arts, where she teaches dramaturgy and research.
Paul de Vries
Paul is senior lecturer in theatre and education at the Utrecht School for the Arts. He is also coordinator of the preparatory track of the Utrecht Centre for the Arts.
Saskia Valk
Saskia Valk is head of theatre making at the Maastricht academy.
Gudrun Beckmann
Gudrun Beckmann is head of the drama teachers programme at the Northern Polytechnic, Leeuwarden.
Maria P. van Bakelen
Maria has been a driving force behind the Dutch drama teachers association and IDEA, the international Drama and Theatre in Education Association.
The Municipal Youth Theatre of Split
The Municipal Youth Theatre of Split main task is to produce professional theatre pieces for children and young people in Split and its surrounding regions.
Paul van den Hoven
Paul van den Hoven is dean of the Professional School of the Arts Utrecht (PSAU).
Evette A. Hunkins-Hutchinson
Evette has worked in various posts using the arts in its entire genre to highlight issues of a sensitive, political, and racial nature to disadvantaged communities, primarily the Black community.
Jos Zandvliet
Jos worked for thirty years in theatre group Dogtroep and was its artistic director from 1990 until 1995. Since then he continues to create large outdoor rituals and has regularly worked with prison inmates.
Luc Opdebeeck
Luc is artistic director of Formaat, a workshop for participatory drama. Since 1989 he has been conducting theatre of the oppressed projects in Holland and abroad.
Arturo Morell
Arturo is a Mexican lawyer, actor, producer and theatre director. Since 1999 he has been working in prisons.
Stichting De Vrolijkheid
Stichting De Vrolijkheid / National Foundation to Encourage Happiness was founded in 1999 and helps young asylum seekers to create a safe and happy future.
Teatro di Nascosto
Teatro di Nascosto (‘invisible theatre’, Volterra, Italy) was founded in 1994 by Dutch actress Annet Henneman (1956), who trained in Grotowski’s theatre laboratory in Poland.
Samba Schutte
In 2004 Samba began to do stand-up comedy, and in 2006 he won the Leids Cabaret Festival: one of Holland’s most prestigious comedy prizes.
Movitep-SF
Movitep-SF was founded in the late 1990s but has clear roots in Nicaragua’s popular theatre movement of the 1980s.
Growing up in public
Theatre company Growing up in Public has been creating and producing modern repertoire since 1989.
Mostarski Teatar Mladih
Since 1974 the Youth Theatre of Mostar has been producing European classics and ensemble-developed theatre pieces with Mostar youth.
Grant Kester
Grant Kester is an associate professor of art history at the University of California, San Diego.
Sandra Trienekens
Sandra is affiliated with the Faculty of Art and History, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands and as ‘Lector Culturele en Maatschappelijke Vorming’ with the Amsterdam Polytechnic.
Jos Bours
While teaching dramaturgy at the Utrecht theatre academy, in 1977 he co-founded Stut Theatre in Utrecht and has been its artistic director and main playwight ever since.
Excerpt from Jos Bours’ Never-Ending Source
In 1977 a theatre group was founded in Utrecht. In and of itself this is nothing unusual, because the city is full of theatre groups, large and small. Utrecht has many theatre training programs and students stick around after they graduate. But this particular group of drama teachers and dramaturgs wanted to make theatre with residents of old and new working-class neighborhoods about their lives in these places. And they wanted these people to perform in the plays.
Rotterdam International Community Theatre/Art Festival
Since 2001, the Rotterdams Wijktheater has been organizing bi-annual festivals at the Zuidplein Theatre in Rotterdam. Lasting four days, these festivals have facilitated important encounters between practitioners from all over the world. Participating artists have included Sally Gordon from Los Angeles, Pregones from New York (Bronx), Sering from Antwerp, Arena y Esteras from Lima (Peru), […]
Creación colectiva
The publication of an interview with Santiago Garcia in the influential theatre magazine Escena and the simultaneous tent theatre tour through Costa Rica of a Candalaria performance constituted the country’s first direct exposure to collective creation, which by then had become widely regarded as the engine behind the influential ‘new’ popular theatre movements of Colombia and Cuba.
Vrede van Utrecht
Vrede van Utrecht has a commission to organise cultural activities in the city and province of Utrecht until 2013: theatre, music, film, exhibitions, readings and debates.
Theatre Embassy
Theatre Embassy occupies a special position within the context of development co-operation in the Netherlands. Focusing on art and culture, it sets out to create broad public support for the important role that these notions play within the development sector.
Sandra Trienekens on Community Art
This publication brings together the experiences of some 100 Dutch community art projects that have taken place over the past two or three years and Dutch (as well as some European) theoretical thinking on the subject.
Elena Jovanova’s final report on the festival/conference 06
In Macedonia there isn’t any attention for Community Arts on an academic level at all, at least not in the way I have witnessed at this conference.
Waterhuis
From the inception of the Waterhuis in 1996, the organization has wedded art practice with development issues. Currently Waterhuis is working primarily on HIV/AIDS by partnering with theatre companies and health organizations in South Africa and Zambia.
Kenya Performing Arts Group
K-PAG (Nairobi) was founded by Odak Onyango and Saskia Ottenhoff in September 2003. K-PAG started from the idea that Kenyan artists deserve better in terms of competition, quality work, professionalism and training.
Crossroads Theatre Productions
Crossroad Theatre Productions is a theatre and Development initiative based in Utrecht, The Netherlands. It uses a methodology called IIPSI, which stands for Interdisciplinary, Interactive, and Participatory Storytelling Initiative.
Malayerba
It was founded in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, in 1979 by actors in exile from Argentina and Europe. In working together, they have shown that a multicultural blend is not only possible but also enriching, as differences lead to new identities.
From Tim Prentki’s Preface to Kees Epskamp’s book
Theatre for Development (TfD) - whereby communities are enabled to address issues of self-development through participation in a theatre process - has grown in ubiquity, accessibility and importance over four decades. It began in the 1970s as a strategy for popular education with adults and children in sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Latin America.
Keynote Speech by François Matarasso
Depending on where you stand in relation to community arts you may have equally different interpretations:
Is it a form of amateur art? Or social work by other means? Or a way of educating people about the classical canon? Or a third-rate practice with no aesthetic standards? Or a cornerstone of cultural democracy?
It’s all of those things and none of them.Caja Lúdica
This collective of very dynamic, mainly Colombian people exists since 2000. They make street spectacles and festive theatre meant for big audiences.
Lotte van den Berg
Lotte van den Berg (1975) is a theatre director who favours a minimalist style with little text. Occasionally she makes theatre at the community-level, such as with inmates and guards of an Antwerp prison.
Hooman Sharifi
Hooman Sharifi questions reality and representation, as well as the notion of being-in-the-world.
Sering
Mia Grijp and Ivo van der Borgt founded theatre company Sering in 1996.
Ivan Iparraguirre
Ivan was born in Peru, where he also received his theatre training, but he has been working in Chile for more than a decade. He is the founder of Teatro Pasmi, a group that creates its own performance but also works with residents of working-class neighbourhood and with inmates of two Santiago prisons.
